See I've Got Heart Like John Starks ('94 Finals Game 7 excluded). I hit like mad sparks.

Quick Hitters and Random Thoughts

--One down (Kyle Lowry), one to go (Luis Scola). And 30 minutes later the Rockets took care of Scola too.
I know it hasn't been a splashy Rockets offseason, but it hasn't been a stupid one spending stupid money with stupid lengthy contracts.

--Well our long 6-day wait is over and U-verse isn't yanking AMC, IFC, and WE off.

--I can’t believe it, but this will be the first year I don’t buy NCAA Football 2010. For shame. Just don’t have the time and if I do have time to pop in a game I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be FIFA World Cup and the new FIFA comes out in a couple of months anyway.

--I wish I could just take September off to ensure I won’t fall too behind on any of my shows. FX released its Fall slate and it all starts Tuesday, September 7th with the return of Sons of Anarchy. F Yeah! Something called Terriers premieres the next night and I’ll give it an episode or two. Thursday, September 16th all hell breaks loose in the 9 o’clock hour with the first of 13 episodes each of Sunny and The League. Anxious to see how League fares over 13 episodes, but I’m not worried.

Classic Antonio Gates cameo. Getting so close to spending waaaay too much time doing fantasy mock drafts. Quite an exciting life I lead, no doubt.

--There’s only one way to hopscotch in Kentucky and if you ain’t doing it that way, well, that’s a beating. Christopher Robison is your combination Father/Teacher of the Year. It seems on July 4th his 5-year-old son was playing hopscotch, but not to his dad’s satisfaction. So he got out his belt and took it to his young son. Mr. Robison is also a middle school teacher or was until he was suspended pending further investigation. What the hell?! The U.S. continues to fall behind other countries in math, science and hopscotch and we suspend some of our fairest, but firmest teachers in the performing arts.

--I think Greenberg was out in theaters for maybe a full week, but it’s out on DVD this week. Seemed like it’d be pretty decent to me though I’m not sure if Ben Stiller can pull off Hank Greenberg who is the Greenberg I assume this biopic is about.

--So it's January Jones and Jason Sudeikis and not January Jones and Bobby Flay. The world is not entirely crazy after all.

--Because honestly having Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Mega Python, and Gatoroid just wasn’t enough. Monkee Mickey Dolenz was added to the cast of that SyFy movie.

--Had my first taste of Sprinkles cupcakes the other day and they’re pretty damn tasty. Doesn’t get better than cream cheese frosting on a red velvet. But if it does then it’s the one that’s basically a Hostess Ding Dong.

--Hell yeah, Dolph Lundgren going to be in Chuck’s season four premiere. Chuck premieres Monday, September 20th. On Thursdays we knew NBC was stupidly taking out Parks and Rec to give Outsourced a Thursday spot. 30 Rock will move to 7:30 between Community and Office. Outsourced gets the 8:30 slot. Just because I'm pissed they're making us wait for Parks I doubt I'll give Outsourced a shot. Back to Community, Betty White is coming aboard for its season premiere as an anthropology professor. I think I took that class and I think I showed up maybe twice. She can’t possibly top Senor Chang and I always thought it was weird, and I guess wise, that the show kind of forgot about John Oliver for the bulk of the season after giving him a lot of time in the first couple episodes.

--ECW is invading TNA?! All right wrestling it’s been a looooong time since I’ve sat down with you, but you give me a true ECW PPV and I’m putting down true money for it.


--Remember Sheyla Hershey? The woman from here whose goal was to have the biggest boobs in the whole wide world? Yeah, you’ll never guess, but that didn’t go so well.

--Oh yay, Mario Lopez and his girlfriend are getting a VH-1 reality show. Why doesn’t VH-1 or MTV, for that matter, re-air shows like the early, good seasons of Real World or The Ben Stiller Show or Daria or The Jon Stewart Show or Britney and Kevin: Chaotic?

--Look I don’t watch The Hills, but I have seen some items about its finale and some kind of intended conundrum for the audience to question if it was all real or fake. Oh Hills you’re so clever.

--I think I need to start watching White Collar, but that would make 2 USA series I’d be following and that just doesn’t seem right.

--Tosh.0 is kicking ass, taking names and taking ratings too. It’s averaging 2.2 million viewers a week which is better than what Daily Show or Colbert average. Of course, they’re on 4 nights a week instead of 1, but still that’s pretty damn impressive.

--I like the trajectory Louie is on as each episode has been better than the previous. Never thought I’d say something like I could watch a semi-clothed 26-year-old on top of Louis CK all day, but then I never thought I’d hear an exchange like:
Louie: “I voted for Michael Dukakis.”
Chick: “Who the hell is that?”
And also "I remember smoking on airplanes" and a Jamie Moyer reference to boot.
Also nice to see ol’ girl from Californication who I guess was in Lucky Louie as well.

And now that I look at Pamela Adlon’s IMDB and just wow! Her first credit was for Grease 2, um hello, greatest movie sequel of all-time for “Cool Rider” alone? Hell yes.

She also had spots on everything from Growing Pains to Facts of Life to Jeffersons to The Redd Foxx Show to ALF to 21 Jump Street to two my personal favorites Say Anything and Wiseguy.
Anyway, Louis CK is coming to Verizon on November 18th.

--If you were wondering Tom Colicchio will not, not, be riding on the bear float in LA’s upcoming gay pride parade. How many more weeks until this season of Top Chef gets interesting?

--Of course there’s a LAS-andwich being sold in the UK. It is what it sounds like a lasagna sandwich with the added bonus of a cheddar, ricotta, mayonnaise dressing.

Not nearly as disgusting as the boiled eggs I've seen sold at Stop n Go. I mean, who the hell would buy such a thing, much less actually ingest it?

--Like Illeana Douglas, but not enough to watch Entourage this season for her. Kinda like I like Brooklyn Decker and Marisa Miller, but not enough to watch the ESPYs for them…record it and fast forward to their parts sure, but not actually watch. By the way Jenn Brown turned down SI's swimsuit offer, but maybe Michelle Beadle will take them up. Seems very down to earth and just straight up cool. I mean she took the U.S./Canada hockey game as her Moment of the Year.

--There's good news and then there's news that Catalan has a new happy hour!

--Interesting read in Esquire about the Price is Right contestant who was perfect. In short the old Price is Right crew was good and the new Price is Right crew is a bunch of jerks and some extremely intelligent and lucky people got screwed over. It would suck to know the price of every item that the show could possibly use only to spin back to back 5¢ at the wheel missing out on the showcase.

Questions, comments or if you’re hitting the Ceviche Throwdown on Monday…here’s the link to the outstanding auction put together to help those truly in need in the Louisiana seafood industry…